40 crore for pensions

The Punjab Government has released a sum of Rs. 40 crore for the month of April 2006 to provide regular monthly old-age pensions and financial assistance to the most vulnerable sections of the society which includes widows, destitute women, orphans and disabled persons.

Disclosing this here today Mrs. Gurkanwal Kaur, Minister of State for Social Security and Development of Women and Children said that out of Rs. 40 crores, 30 crore has been released for old-age pensions and Rs. 10 crore for financial assistance for other beneficaries. She said these pensions and financial assistance was given through Social Security Department to Oldage Persons above the age of 65 years ( Men), 60 years (Women) and financial assistance to widows and destitute women below 60 years . Dependant children upto the age of 21 years alongwith handicapped persons having at least 50 percent disablity were eligible for these financial benifits. Punjab Govt. has also enhanced rates of Oldage Pension and other Financial Assistance Schemes from Rs. 200/- p.m. to Rs. 250/- p.m. which was effected from 1.4.2006. She said that this was the first such example in the country that a dedicated social security fund of Rs. 450 crore was setup by Punjab Government to ensure unintrupled old-age pension and financial assistances to 1224371 beneficiaries regularly every month. Out of these beneficiaries 92,9286 were oldage pensioners, 162304 were widows and destitute women , 58455 dependant children and 74326 disabled persons.

She further said that the state government has decided to increse the frequency of meetings of Gram Sabhas to screen applications for old age pension, quarterly instead of the previous half yearly basis.